


New Year's Fortune

by lea_hazel



Category: Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem (Visual Novel)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Festivals, Fluff, Holidays, Hopeful Ending, Implied Relationships, Language of Flowers, New Years, Rebels, Revaire, Traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 05:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14418462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/pseuds/lea_hazel
Summary: For a language of flowers meme on Tumblr: Iris Yellow – Passion; Iris Blue – Faith, Hope. Two sides of the same coin. Passion is the why. Faith is the how.





	New Year's Fortune

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jillyfae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/gifts).



> I set the Revairian New Year at the spring equinox. It’s semi-coincidental that this puts the beginning of the year in March, which was also the first month of the old Roman calendar. The tradition of bonfires is taken from a post on Aly's Tumblr. The flower fortunes are my own addition.

They celebrated the new year in Miralah. It was not Allegra’s first visit to the estate that would eventually be her home, but her first visit had been cut short by a series of increasingly frantic letters from her mother, and her second visit was marred by an unseasonably early freeze. That had been nearly six months ago, six months which they had spent almost entirely apart. It hadn’t been by design, but neither of them were surprised to find that even after the summit, they were obliged to spend more time separated than together, far more time than either of them would have liked.

Clarmont’s business took him all over the kingdom, seeking new alliances and cementing old ones, making certain that all his cards were in order before he made his final play. Allegra had attended her sister Scarlet for the birth of her first child, and wintered in Leonie’s country estate, in the company of several of Revaire’s wealthiest and highest ranking nobility. In between these, she still had to attend to the Dawnview estate, and keep an eye on her father’s business, too.

There was something symbolic about this being their first big holiday together, though Allegra would never admit to thinking so, under pain of death. Everything in their lives right now was about new beginnings. A new beginning for Allegra, away from her reputation as the Red Widow and the most fashionable scandal at court. The hope of spring for Scarlet, whose baby boy was born during the winter’s bitterest thunderstorm. For the people of Miralah, a new sowing and the hope of a harvest to come, and for their lord, a resolution not to put his own needs last, for once. And the hope of a new future for Revaire, if she dared to believe in it.

That night, Allegra thought that perhaps she did dare.

“I don’t know if I believe it because it is possible,” she said as they watched the bonfire being built, “or because I want it too much to dare to disbelieve.”

Clarmont squeezed her hand lightly and said, “I know exactly what you mean.”

“I can’t explain it,” she went on. “A year ago, I was ready to leave and never return.”

“Leave Revaire, you mean?” he asked.

She nodded silently.

“I’m not certain I believe it,” said Clarmont thoughtfully. “I’ve seen you at Dawnview. You know the name of every tenant, and I believe you have the manor’s account books memorized.”

“I was only doing my duty,” said Allegra. “The steward had no difficulty managing in my absence for two months. I’m certain he would have been no less successful if my departure had been more permanent.”

“The people in Dawnview love you, Allegra,” said Clarmont.

Allegra laughed. “You’re very sweet,” she said, and squeezed his hand back. “Dawnview’s staff certainly respect me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s your people who adore you beyond reason, and no wonder. Look now, they’re calling for you to light the bonfire.”

“I’d better not disappoint them, then,” said Clarmont, and let go of her hand with obvious reluctance.

She sat and watched him laughingly accept a torch from a smiling, apple-cheeked woman. The boys and girls who had prepared the bonfire had built the logs up high and piled twigs and kindling thickly beneath them. It would probably burn for hours. According to the local traditions, if it lasted until daybreak it was supposed to foresage good luck for the coming year. Most of the people gathered around them were carrying some old bit of clothing or trinket that they meant to cast into the fire. Allegra herself was clutching a small parcel of some of her mother’s more exasperating letters, which she was only too eager to commit to the flame.

Clarmont bent down and touched the torch to the piled kindling, watching the flame crawl across it, slowly growing. She hadn’t asked him what, if anything, he intended to burn.

One of the kitchen girls approached her with a basket full of early spring flowers and shyly presented her with it.

“For good omens in the new year, milady,” she explained.

“You’re meant to choose your own fortune,” added one of her friends more boldly, before belatedly adding, “milady.”

Allegra grinned crookedly. “We never got flowers this early in the season, back in Arrowfield,” she said. “Do I close my eyes?”

The girl holding the basket nodded energetically.

She closed her eyes and stuck her hand blindly into the basket, casting about until her fingers closed on one of the stems. When she gently pulled it loose from the others, she heard the girls around her break into giggling. It was a pretty, pale blue iris, the kind with petals that looked much more delicate than they actually were. Allegra looked up at the girl holding the basket, but the latter averted her eyes and ran off with her friends, still giggling and blushing furiously.

“Did you choose your fortune?” asked Clarmont.

She turned to him and presented him with the flower, which he plucked out of her fingers and tucked into her hair.

“It’s a curious tradition,” she said. “What fate was I assigned? The girls seemed quite agitated by it.”

He smiled mysteriously and said, “I’ll tell you later.”

“Floriography at court was much simpler,” said Allegra.

“You must have received dozens of bouquets,” said Clarmont.

“Mostly orange roses,” she replied.

He winced.

Allegra grinned again. “I was a scandalous widow, you’ll recall.”

“Still,” said Clarmont. “No gentleman sends such a message to a lady. It’s trifling.”

“Oh,” said Allegra, her grin turning impish, “they weren’t all gentlemen.”

“I’m thrilled,” he said dryly, “to know that you still have many stories to share with me. I was beginning to worry that perhaps I might have uncovered all of your secrets already.”

“That would make for a rather dull marriage, I’m afraid,” replied Allegra, “and as such, I could never allow it.”

“I look forward to being surprised,” he said, “every day of my life.”

“Is that why you didn’t pick out your own fortune?” she asked. “I thought perhaps it was a tradition reserved only for women.”

He smiled again at that, but more softly. “I’m still holding on to the fortune I received at last year’s bonfire,” he said. “I find I’m not quite done with it.”


End file.
